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Not an actual picture of my event… just what I pictured it would look like in my mind!

Years ago…when I still imagined it was possible to be the perfect pastor’s wife… I started the tradition of having the Shouse House Open House. Every Christmas I would invite the entire church into our home/parsonage for food and “fellowship” (the Christian word for sitting around eating, talking, and trying not to gossip or cuss in front of the preacher). And every Christmas I would spend the days leading up to the big event cleaning, cooking, and completely stressing out over ever single detail.

My very first open house I had a menu plan that would rival Martha Steward AND Rachel Ray, a housekeeping list longer than the long-dead Santa’s fictional naughty & nice list (sorry if I just ruined the magic for you), and a stress level higher than a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs (picked that one up in Kentucky- feel free to add it to your repertoire).

Christmas is always a busy time of year for pastor’s families, and adding this high pressure event always made it worse. In those years I found myself yelling more, sleeping less, fretting, crying, bossing, arguing, whining…it was certainly not pretty. Peace on earth, my foot! Who’s idea was this open house, anyway? My dear sweet Jeff was always quick to remind me that this was all my idea. Thanks, sweetheart.

This year we’re in a new house, with new church people, and new traditions, but I sorta wanted to keep some of my familiar traditions going. So I started planning our annual Shouse House Open House…but this year I decided to do something different. I decided to keep it simple (Novel concept IKR?…Sorry…I have teenage daughters…). Anyway… It’s part of a new set of principles we’re starting to live by personally as well as within our church ministry. There are 4 principles, actually:

Cover everything in PRAYER

Make the GOSPEL the center

Focus on PEOPLE rather than programs

Keep. It. Simple.

In order to live by these principles I had to re-think my open house event. I stopped and prayed- God, do You truly want me to do this again or am I only doing it because I’ve always done it (ever heard that? Yeah, we don’t want to be one of THOSE people…). Once I got the go-ahead from Him, I had to remember that my purpose in life is not to impress my friends with my cooking or housekeeping skillz (yes…that’s a Z…don’t judge). My purpose in life is to Know Christ & to Make Him Known (aka “Gospel-centered”). So I made sure to invite people outside my church family- people who may need to know the real “reason for the season”- who may not go to church even during Christmas. I also wanted to make sure to be people-focused during this event. What’s the point of inviting people into my home if I’m too busy keeping the meatballs warm and the layer cake from slipping to sit down and have a conversation with any of my guests? So… I decided to keep it simple.

This year instead of an elaborate menu, we made six double batches of Easy Cookies (see recipe below). Instead of Pinterest-worthy punch, we had red juice with ginger ale. And instead of a spotless house with a worn out family, we swept the kitchen, straightened the living room, and closed the doors to all the other rooms in the house. (We no longer live in a parsonage, so no one needs to be inspecting the bedroom closet, right?) 🙂 Keeping it simple resulted in over 400 cookies to share! (Sounds like a lot, but it actually only took a few hours on Saturday…and we were able to use the leftover cookies for neighbor & teacher gifts.) Plus I still had energy to visit with my guests AND my family still liked me when it was all over! Voila! Simple, meaningful, joyful, fun- not just in theory! 🙂

During this busy and often stressful season- what are some ways you’re keeping it simple?

Shouse House Open House~ Christmas 2015

EASY COOKIES

1 box cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

1/2 bag candies or choc chips

Mix well. Place by small spoonfulls on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10 min or until set but not hard. I doubled this for each batch and used a teaspoon so I could fit 20 cookies per cookie sheet. The doubled recipe made about 75 small cookies.

Variations I used:

Yellow cake mix with chocolate chips (why mess with the traditional chocolate chip cookie? This is always the most popular at any gathering)

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My headache had gotten so bad that even my husband was desperate for a remedy! He read online that grape juice gets rid of migraines, so he drove to the store and bought a big bottle of the stuff. He … Continue reading →

I remember it like it was yesterday. I walked into church that Sunday morning knowing that the church was going to vote on the future of the pastor- my husband. The betrayal had come as a shock to me which made it even harder to swallow. As the service started, my mind raced with questions and emotions, fear battled with faith. What would we do if they voted us out? Why would they even think of doing such a thing? How can I protect my kids from what’s about to happen? We live in a parsonage! We’re about to be jobless AND homeless! God- where are you!?!

The next thing I knew it was time to lead the congregation in worship. As I stood and looked out over the people we had loved and led for years, the last thing I felt like doing was singing. I wanted to scream and cry and throw things. The ministry we had poured our lives into was falling apart and I had no idea if the people we had come to love would stand with us, vote against us or just leave in the turmoil. But the clock continued to tick, and it was time to worship. I can’t do this, LORD. At that moment God brought to mind James 1:2-4 with a gentle whisper to my soul “Consider this an opportunity for joy, my daughter.”

JOY? Are you serious, Lord? You want me to choose JOY in this moment?

Yes, joy is a choice: often a hard choice. It’s choosing to see the goodness of God in the midst of my circumstances. The rest of my life may be terrible, but God is good. Choosing joy is looking beyond my temporary condition in order to see the big picture of God’s plan. Things may be falling apart now, but this “light and momentary struggle is achieving for me an eternal glory” that far outweighs what I’m going through. (2 Corinthians 4:16) This testing of my faith will produce endurance and character and strength and trust.

God used this trial to point out the areas where my attitude needed to change. Who am I singing for? Am I singing for the attention of the people or the applause of God? In whose strength am I leading? Am I doing ministry in my own strength or fully relying on God to accomplish His work through me? Am I willing to let God shape me and make me stronger by taking me through hard things? Who really holds my future? Am I clinging to control or trusting Him with my life? On that day I learned a great lesson: I can choose joy because His approval is all I need. His strength will carry me through every trial. And looking back I now can testify that joy was the best choice because God truly did have my future in His hands and His plan really is a good one.

Here’s what joy looked like for me on that dark day. I stood on the platform, closed my tear-filled eyes and sang:

Our God is greater

Our God is stronger

God, You are higher than any other

And if our God is for us, nothing can stand against us!

That, my friends, is why we can choose joy!

When you look back at the hard times, how has God used them for good in your life now? How can you intentionally choose joy today? Build a foundation of choosing joy in the little moments in your life so that when the crisis hits, you already know what true joy looks like!

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It happens every spring: the frozen ground begins to thaw and tiny bits of green begin poking through the surface. By the time we get to this point in the season it’s almost as if we had begun to wonder if winter would ever end! Is everything dead? Will we ever see signs of life out in our yard? It’s sort of like ministry. We go through seasons where we don’t see any growth or progress. We work and pray and hope for people to be added to our number, for lives to be changed, for our churches to grow, but it seems as if there is no life to be found. We look at social media and see pictures of record numbers in attendance and 5,286 baptisms in other churches, and we wonder why God doesn’t seem to be working in our own ministry.

But the truth is: God is always working- sometimes we just have to look a little closer to see it.

Do you see that man who unassumingly mows the yards of his elderly neighbor ladies? What about that mom who brings her toddler to Sunday School despite the fact that her husband chooses to sleep in on Sundays? See the empty-nester couple who brings that neighbor kid to church and then treats her to a milkshake afterwards? And look, there’s an older lady who babysits for a young couple struggling to find time for their marriage with all those children running around. The woman who faithfully prays for her pastor, the teenager reading her Bible at the lunch table at school, the business owners who give away more product than they sell… those are signs of life. God is working. Most of the beauty is just below the surface, but it’s there.

So be encouraged! There is hope! These little acts of goodness don’t happen naturally- they are supernatural! Take some time today to look a little closer at the people in your ministry. Find that proof that God is working, and hang on to that hope!

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

A while back I decided to go shopping…at Walmart…on a Saturday…in December! Not the smartest decision I could have made. As I dragged myself home afterwards, my husband asked: “How did it go?” My frazzled response was “It would have been fine if it weren’t for all those people!”

Hmmm… sounds like a typical Monday morning conversation between many pastor’s wives and women in ministry.

“How was church this weekend?”

“Well, it would have been great if it weren’t for the people!” 🙂

It’s definitely easy to feel that way sometimes. You’ve worked hard in preparing for a day of worship, teaching, fellowship & outreach, only to have it seemingly ruined by people who are complaining, needy, critical, pushy, loud, whiny, or drama-filled. Ugh! Why do people have to be so… well… so much like PEOPLE!?!

In my early days of church ministry I imagined that people in the church would simply be happy to be there. We would all be filled with the fruit of the Spirit and would enjoy being together showing one another lots of love, patience, kindness, and grace. But that’s not how it is much of the time. And you wanna know why? Because people are people…even in the church. People complain at church, but they also complain at the doctors’ office, at school, and at Wal-Mart. People are pushy and dramatic at church, but they’re also pushy and dramatic in their homes, their jobs, and… at Wal-mart.

So what do we do? Do we isolate ourselves from people in order to shield our hearts from anything troubling? Do we lash out in anger and yell at people until they start being nicer?

What did Jesus do with people? In His three years of ministry on this earth, He was constantly surrounded by people: people who were complaining, needy, critical, pushy, loud, whiny, and drama-filled. But when you read through the Gospels, you see Jesus looking out over the crowds touching people, teaching people, caring for people. His overriding response was compassion. Compassion for people.

God loves people…more than anything. And not just the people who have it all together. Not just the people who are generous with their compliments and kind in their actions. He loves people. Period. And He calls us to love people. Not just people who support our ministry efforts and send us cookies at Christmas. Not just people who thank us for our work or follow the rules in the express checkout lane. He calls us to love people. Period.

Ministry is discouraging sometimes. People are hurtful. Sheep bite. And it would be easy to go storming out of the doors of the church because of the people there. But pretty soon we’ll find ourselves surrounded by the same people once again outside the walls of the church. Instead, let’s follow the ways of Jesus. Let’s love people and look on them with compassion. That’s what will make a difference in the world…especially when we find ourselves in Wal-Mart on a Saturday in December.

Have you ever found yourself put out with people? What ways do you chose to show love & compassion instead of frustration & anger in those situations? I’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a comment below: